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The “Cool” Factor - Part Two
Posted by Joseph Riggio on Sunday, January 28, 2007Cool begins with being yourself ... then acting decisively regardless of where you find yourself or even what others might think of you.
Howdy All,
Remaining cool begins with first being cool. This means knowing how to establish and keep a state of "cool." I began this thread with the concept of "cool" being a way of BEING.
In many contexts people will reference the idea of being cool - usually meaning they are in control ... in control of themselves, in control of the situation, even to some extent in control of how others perceive them and the situation. We refer to people keeping their cool, again usually referring to them keeping their wits about them, acting elegantly in a situation, remaining calm and in control. However, we seldom speak of people getting their cool. - from The "Cool" Factor - Part One
I'd add to this description that this state allows for operating in a focused and calm way regardless of the situation. The ultimate cool maybe expressed by fictional characters - I personally find those in the mystery drama/action/thriller category the most obvious exemplars. For instance the *new* James Bond gives us a great example of cool - take a look at the torture seen - calm, collected, in control and humor in the face of horror and destruction - ZERO COMPROMISE - ultimate cool. (I thought that Daniel Craig was the ultimate Bond so far BTW.)
So what can we learn from Bond ... James Bond ... in this scene? First that the basis for his cool was pre-established, not "made up" in the moment. He knows who he is (BEING) and what he's about (DOING) and he's made up his mind about both before he finds himself in a position to call upon his cool. Throughout the movie he must make decisions in the moment based on holding a position that he's well established for himself and drawing upon skills or abilities that are innate, trained and derivative. So the order of action would be BEING first then DOING
The skills that James Bond displays flow from who he is - his way of being in the world. In another scene where Bond plays cards for millions, he begins with a ten million buy in and he loses everything on a wrong assumption in a single hand during the first round of play - he's been duped. At first we see him stunned, then almost immediately he resets - ready to begin again, confident that he can and will win. Even then he hits a wall when Vesper, played by Eva Green, a British Treasury agent who oversees the distribution of money to fund Bond's play in the game refuses to bank him again for an additional five million buy in. Then he decides to take action regardless and kill Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen), but Lieter (Jeffrey Wright) intercedes and agrees to have the CIA fund him in the next round. Bond resets again and discreetly sits down to play again ... VERY COOL.
For more information on the new James Bond movie "Casino Royale" go to:
http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/casinoroyale/site/
So what does it take to get and keep your cool?
That would be a pretty good short list to begin with. So while this would not be an exhaustive step-by-step instruction set for being cool (or getting your cool) - it would be a way of thinking about what I mean by the idea of the Cool Factor. However, more significantly this list wouldn't necessarily explain why I think the Cool Factor remains so important conceptually and practically.
One of my most basic premises regarding significant performance improvement has been and remains the ability to set the starting position. This idea forms the essence or core of my professional work. The entire Mythogenic Self Process revolves around the idea of setting the starting position - the Ready State. Then from this position deciding what to be doing ... always in relation to the context - circumstance and situation - and the intention held, i.e.: What Do You Want? Based on this structure it not only becomes possible but it becomes imperative to take action.
Of course it would be one thing to talk about having "cool" and another thing completely to actually have it. Recently I myself found my cool being challenged and found that the years of preparation have served me well. Even in what I would consider the most unfortunate, unfair and pejorative situation I found myself served by access to my "cool." This did not produce my outcome, but it did allow me to operate without compromising myself in anyway - and I remain whole as a result.
In Casino Royale James Bond finds himself duped and betrayed, by people he respected, trusted and even loved. He must again and again choose a position of wholeness regardless of how the Universe has unfolded around him. The ability to do this ... to choose to remain "cool" regardless of the situation or circumstance makes all the difference. In fact if I had to choose one trait that most defines elite performance I'd have to say it would be one's "cool factor" - never forgeting who you are would be a good place to start.
Oh yeah, one more scene I loved in the recent Bond movie (I won't even begin to talk about the exciting chase scene at the beginning or the heartfelt restarting scene in terms of defining cool) - he checks into a hotel under an assumed name "undercover" and announces himself and Vesper by name as well. He presumes they already know him anyway and has no hesitation to come out in public as himself despite the cost of what other might know or find out about him as a result. I love that - knowing who you are being more important than who others might think you are - very, very cool, eh???
Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
Princeton, NJ
Check out my How to Build a $1,000,000 Coaching, Counseling, Consulting, Training and Advising Business DVD package. I'm especially please with this package ... five DVDs, the program manual and the self-examination instrument we actually used in the live program ... the feedback has already been superb. While you missed the live program you don't have to lose out on the incredible value presented there, this package captures all of it and more, like the fully interactive exercises we built into the program DVDs. Go and take a look now: How to Build a $1,000,000 Coaching, Counseling, Consulting, Training and Advising Business.
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The “Cool” Factor - Part One
Posted by Joseph Riggio on Sunday, January 14, 2007Howdy all,
Happy New Year! - I know it's been a while since I've posted a blog entry ... so much has been going on. But, it seems time again to offer up some of my thoughts ... so here goes.
I've been working at 're-coordinating' my thinking about thinking and things. Specifically I've been hard at work pruning away what distracts me from where I want my focus to be in my work. This has proven time and again to be the most difficult thing for me to be doing. A combination of so many interesting things to pursue and so much information that easily accessible makes it challenging not to follow the siren's call. For me this call has been the lure that the most important piece of information I don't yet have waits just around the next corner ... a book I haven't yet read, or a speaker I haven't yet listened to, or a seminar I haven't yet attended. I could list another dozen ways to be pulled off-track, and most of them would be eminently valid - yet that wouldn't serve our purpose here.
Simply - the lure of "What's Missing" remains ever present and waiting to take me away if I were to let it. So instead what I've done has been to decide to use the time I could have spent searching for what I don't yet know, have or do to organizing around the core of what I already know, have and do. This has made a significant difference in my ability to pare down to the core what I want to be presenting and spending my time on and around.
Returning to the Core
What I find most interesting has to do with the return to the core - the essential "what" that I do. At its most basic what I do can be summed up in terms of human performance. I've said many times:
For all intents and purposes what goes on inside people's heads - in their minds - must remain for anyone else a "Black Box" ... and unknown. We can never know what others are thinking ... except in terms of the behaviors they express ... these observed behaviors are for all intents and purposes who others are known by us to be. And, our response to the behavior of others becomes who we are known to be by them.
While I regard thinking as a behavior, from the outside looking in, only the actual expression of 'acts in the world' become available to observers. These acts are the basis of performance - and we are known both to others and ultimately to ourselves in regard to our performance in the world. Our acts define our performance, and in turn our performance defines who we become.
So there we have it ... after three months of soul searching and burning away everything that I can't lose and not lose the essence of what I do what remained was 'performance'.
The Return of "Cool"
As I began to more and more consider the idea of the "Black Box" theory I've outlined above I began to realize again that all behaviors must begin somewhere. In other words there will be a structure that any given person will follow that results in the behavior/s they display. And, this structure will most likely have a sequence to it as well. For instance a typical sequence might look like this:
Then of course the "Response" at the end of the sequence above could be the behavioral signal (Stimulus) for someone else to to be responding to creating a loop between them. Another possibility would be that the Response (Behavior) at the end of the sequence above creates a result that becomes the Stimulus for others.
Yet I've realized for quite some time that there a component precedes the sequence indicated above. The person already exists before the Stimulus can be perceived, considered, and/or responded to in any way. More importantly how you are before you become aware of the stimulus will to a great extent determine your ability to perceive it (the stimulus) at all and then what will happen as a result.
The most important consideration for me in the work that I do has become HOW a person holds themselves in the world - the ground of their BEING.
In many contexts people will reference the idea of being cool - usually meaning they are in control ... in control of themselves, in control of the situation, even to some extent in control of how others perceive them and the situation. We refer to people keeping their cool, again usually referring to them keeping their wits about them, acting elegantly in a situation, remaining calm and in control. However, we seldom speak of people getting their cool.
Yet for me this has become a topic of great interest - "How do you get your COOL?" On one level this can be thought of as a state of mind, or more accurately a state of being. But for all intents and purposes what becomes more significant in the study of COOL will be the behaviors of COOL.
So to bring this around to the end for now what I've noticed revolves around how people who do COOL really well do what they do. First they begin from establishing the State of COOL in themselves, next they project operating from this state out to others who engage and interact with them, and those that do this particularly well can even build Contexts of COOL so that the COOL they've built extend to others around them. Cool, eh???
What I've been playing at for many years now has to do with the ability to assist my clients in developing their own State of COOL and to install the mechanism for this to become their default state - the ground of their BEING so to speak. Then at the next level I work with them on developing the ability to build Contexts of COOL so that they can engage others from this way of being and bring them along into it as well. I'll share a bit more about this next time ...
Until next time then ... and in the meantime I'd love to hear your comments and questions ... and most of all if you agree or disagree with the concept of COOL
Best regards,
Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
